Bodsberry Hill
Unenclosed Platform Settlement (Early Bronze Age) - (Late Iron Age), Bracelet (Shale)(Later Prehistoric), Unidentified Pottery (Later Prehistoric)
Site Name Bodsberry Hill
Classification Unenclosed Platform Settlement (Early Bronze Age) - (Late Iron Age), Bracelet (Shale)(Later Prehistoric), Unidentified Pottery (Later Prehistoric)
Canmore ID 47296
Site Number NS91NE 17
NGR NS 966 165
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/47296
- Council South Lanarkshire
- Parish Crawford
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Clydesdale
- Former County Lanarkshire
Field Visit (June 1971)
NS 963 165: Unenclosed Platform Settlement, Bodsberry Hill. A single platform, 10 m wide, is situated on the steep SW flank of Bodsberry Hill about 200 m NW of Bodsberry End cottage and immediately above the line of the Roman road (RR 7f). Faint traces of several more platforms, severely denuded by cultivation and quarrying in recent times, can be seen to extend for a distance of about 300 m to the ESE, indicating that the settlement was originally of considerable extent.
RCAHMS 1978, visited June 1971
Field Visit (3 April 1985)
NS91NE 17 966 165.
Below the SE corner of a forestry plantation there are two groups of platforms. The upper group lies immediately S of the plantation and comprises 4 platforms. About 100m to the SE there are a further 2 platforms (see also NS91NE 25).
Visited by RCAHMS (JBS, SH) 3 April 1985
Excavation (1990)
Excavation by APG, on the platform at NS 9634 1655 revealed a primary platform with a later reuse of the levelled site. The primary construction consisted of a stone built frontal apron, with scant surviving evidence of a double stone wall at the rear. A charcoal- filled stakehole associated with this phase should provide a C14 date. Sherds of very coarse pottery including a rim, plus two pieces of shale bracelet were the finds from this primary phase. After what must have been a considerable period of abandonment, enough to accumulate an approximate 0.2m covering of hillwash, the levelled platform was reused. The cut into the hill side for the back of the platform was modified into a shallow drainage gully. A central hearth relating to this reuse of the platform should provide a C14 date for this event.
(See also NS91NE 25)
J Terry and A Leslie 1990.
Publication Account (1993)
Excavation and survey work ahead of the new M74 road development, jointly funded by Historic Scotland and Scottish Office Industry Department (Roads), at an unenclosed platform settlement, with its accompanying field system, has yielded an Early Bronze Age radiocarbon date from a primary hut platform structure. Subsequent re-use of the single excavated platform stance is dated to the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
J Terry 1993
Note (1997)
The archive from the 1990 excavation of Bodsberry Hill settlement has been catalogued. It consists of photographic archive, manuscripts and drawings.
Historic Scotland Archive Project (LD) 1997
